The winter/spring catalog of continuing-education courses is now available for students and non-students interested in taking noncredit courses.
University of Wisconsin offers hundreds of noncredit courses each semester for people interested in a variety of topics. The catalog describes courses in counseling, dance, fitness, public management, languages and drama, as well as numerous other subject areas.
Typically, continuing-education courses are comprised of adults; however, there has been an increase in UW student enrollment recently, according to Maureen Janson, coordinator of dance, fitness and movement courses.
“There is a greater student interest. Student involvement seems to be on an up-swing,” Janson said.
For students, a noncredit course offers opportunities to learn something new and the possibility of removing the pressure of worrying about a grade. In addition, students can participate in courses not offered during the academic year.
“There are quite a few classes not available on campus,” Janson said. “I teach a body awareness course. We also teach yoga, Pilates and improvisational dance. Some of our teachers are world-renowned and don’t teach on campus.”
Janson noted some of the more popular dance classes like ballet, African dance, contemporary dance and tap. Middle Eastern dance is also gaining popularity, according to Janson.
Another department showing greater UW student enrollment is theater. This department offers a mix of short workshops, as well as five- to six-week courses.
“We use professional artists in each discipline to teach the courses,” said Beth Cash, coordinator of theater programs.
Most of the theater classes have not started yet, which means that interested students can still sign up. Cash also added that students can still sign up for theater audition workshops on Feb. 14 and 15, which teach everything from preparing a portfolio to auditioning for Shakespeare productions.
Judy Reed, director of program information for the Division of Continuing Studies, said a majority of UW students in continuing-education courses also enroll in foreign-language courses.
“Students in the past have typically wanted language training if they were taking a trip to Europe but didn’t necessarily need the credit,” Reed said.
For students who are looking toward the future, there are a number of workshops one can take to learn valuable skills.
For example, an aspiring screenwriter may want to take the one-day seminar on “Writing a successful screenplay”. The course offers ways to make a screenplay more attractive to producers, as well as a critique on 10 pages of your own screenplay.
Course lengths run from all-day seminars to a several months long. Price ranges also differ depending on the amount of time the course is in session. “Drawing: individual or small group” costs $35 for a one-hour individual drawing session, while the “Executive writing” seminar costs $98 for an all-day session.
Adults taking courses can receive recognition and a certificate in programs that teach foreign language, human-services administration, public management and substance abuse.
They can also receive continuing education units that measure their participation in the course, which future employers recognize as educational attainment. Adults can also earn Department of Public Instruction clock-hours for license-renewal purposes. Thirty clock-hours equals one semester of credit.
